Okay, first, it's not the same guy. And second, this Charles Cooper that you link to is the one who defended Proposition 8 (anti-gay marriage) before the Supreme Court, so I hardly think that going to Alabama Law hurt the dude.

The OP here has written this book: --LinkRemoved--, and he's co-written the Con Law thing with Thane Messinger, who's written this --LinkRemoved-- and this --LinkRemoved--, among others. The OP also runs nontradlaw.net, a forum for non-trad law students (which has been very quiet recently, and some of the choices people there are making would give you all heart attacks, but is nonetheless a good community of its kind). According to the Con Law book, he was a mid-level associate at a big firm who lost his job in the recession and is now working a non-law government job.

Not saying any of you have to rush out and buy the book or think more highly of it, but I thought I'd give some context at least.

Okay, first, it's not the same guy. And second, this Charles Cooper that you link to is the one who defended Proposition 8 (anti-gay marriage) before the Supreme Court, so I hardly think that going to Alabama Law hurt the dude.

The OP here has written this book: --LinkRemoved--, and he's co-written the Con Law thing with Thane Messinger, who's written this --LinkRemoved-- and this --LinkRemoved--, among others. The OP also runs nontradlaw.net, a forum for non-trad law students (which has been very quiet recently, and some of the choices people there are making would give you all heart attacks, but is nonetheless a good community of its kind). According to the Con Law book, he was a mid-level associate at a big firm who lost his job in the recession and is now working a non-law government job.

Not saying any of you have to rush out and buy the book or think more highly of it, but I thought I'd give some context at least.

Okay, first, it's not the same guy. And second, this Charles Cooper that you link to is the one who defended Proposition 8 (anti-gay marriage) before the Supreme Court, so I hardly think that going to Alabama Law hurt the dude.

The OP here has written this book: --LinkRemoved--, and he's co-written the Con Law thing with Thane Messinger, who's written this --LinkRemoved-- and this --LinkRemoved--, among others. The OP also runs nontradlaw.net, a forum for non-trad law students (which has been very quiet recently, and some of the choices people there are making would give you all heart attacks, but is nonetheless a good community of its kind). According to the Con Law book, he was a mid-level associate at a big firm who lost his job in the recession and is now working a non-law government job.

Not saying any of you have to rush out and buy the book or think more highly of it, but I thought I'd give some context at least.

From the introduction of Charles and Thane's book which can be viewed for free on Amazon:

Con Law wrote:The purpose of this book is to provide the reader, who is (or ought to be) someone interested in becoming an attorney – that is the purpose of attending law school, after all – with a second opinion. The hope is to provoke the reader into thinking a little more deeply prior to setting foot in law school, which is now such an expensive, time-consuming endeavor that going into it without considering these points is beyond foolish.

It also bears mentioning how this book came about. Once upon a time, Charles spent his days behind a large desk in a well-respected law firm in a great city, enjoying a panoramic view of the downtown skyline, sipping on the firm's finest Costa Rican coffee, and reclining in a puffy leather office chair. Hardly a failure by any measure.

He had it pretty good: a great salary, plentiful work as a real lawyer, manageable hours, about as perfect a private practice could ever be for a mid-level associate. Stressful at times, to be sure, but he knew he had it made compared to many others, and especially compared to recent law graduates, many of whom were already struggling to find jobs.

This was 2008.

Then something happened: The Shift.

A rapid, dramatic, unsettling shift in the legal economy. A shift law schools to this day refuse to acknowledge. The job market for attorneys completely dried up as the economy collapsed. First came the economic slowdown, followed by mass layoffs throughout the profession as firms restructured to become leaner, less stuffed with expensive young associates who were profitable in good times, but a drain on a firm's finances during slow times. Outsourcing and contract work, once terms reserved for customer service centers and debt collectors, became commonplace. Online services came of age, and started offering reasonable-quality do-it-yourself legal services for the average person on the street, making small firms all but irrelevant. The government, stung by suddenly-slashed budgets, stopped being a safety net for lawyers seeking refuge.

Experienced and dedicated attorneys left or were forced out of the profession, fleeing for safer, more stable careers – if they could find a position in a troubled economy. Many who tried to remain in the legal profession were demoted to performing mindless document review work on a temporary basis for a fraction of their former incomes, answering to a junior associate attorney and being treated like cattle. We all thought our jobs were safe from such degrading sub-positions. For must this was a career fate worse than death.

Charles too fell victim to these seismic changes in the profession. The firm's clients were suddenly no longer as busy developing real estate, acquiring companies, innovating, producing, litigating, or making money like they had in the good old days. There weren't as many deals to be worked on. Clients, in response to their own business slowdown, started slashing their own costs, including their legal budgets. The party was over; fewer business deals, and less money to squander on over-lawyering those few deals that remained. Clients they were paying far too much for basic legal work (and they still are!), and so negotiated their fees down to rock bottom levels, did much of their own work in-house, or just put off all but the most essential legal matters. Contrary to what many attorneys thought, clients had immense power over their lawyers and started calling the shots, rather than having their lawyers dictate what needed to be done and how much it was going to cost. After all, if their current attorney or law firm was not prepared to deliver legal services at bargain-basement prices, there were ten other firms in the same zip code that would gladly undercut and slash hourly rates in order to get the work now that the economy was in free-fall. Being paid half the typical hourly rate was better than not being paid at all. Billable hours were suddenly harder to come by, and what happened to many, many other lawyers happened to Charles: collateral damage as he was generating less income for the firm that what it cost to employ him. In better economic times, this would be seen as a temporary setback, something that time itself would correct, but when every penny counts and the future holds only greater likely austerity, an overpaid, underused attorney is a simple line item to erase from a budget.

So, unable to find a position in another firm (all of whom were suffering from the same weak economic conditions and fear) despite knocking on every door in town, plus just about every firm with a two-hour commuting range, which included two major metro areas with one of the nation's largest legal markets, and calling in every favor from every attorney he knew, he ended up opening up shop as a solo practitioner. This was about the same as being unemployed, except it cost money. Office rent, marketing costs, time spent promoting the business, and so forth, In hindsight, he knew he should have simply quit the law at that point, and move to another career. Perhaps he might try to reenter the profession when (if!) the economy turned around, which, of course, has not happened (and might not ever happen in the same way as before). After many months of effort, expense, and no paying clients – not even one! – he resorted to document review work in a desperate attempt to generate some income while he plugged away at solo practice in his spare time. After a few months of the most degrading experience of his life, he finally saw the writing on the wall and called it quits. There was nothing left the profession could offer, and he is now working happily in a non-law government position.

[…]

A word on law school rankings and on Charles' own educational background, which formed the beginning and basis for this work:

Charles wrote:I am not a Harvard grad, nor has my education been particularly distinguished or prestigious. I attended a great regional law school. "Great regional" is my own designation for a law school that is well-regarded within its hiring region (its home state, perhaps nearby out-of-state major metro areas too) but is not of a national stature.

While Charles went to a "great regional school," it sounds like Thane went to a T14.

Con Law wrote:Thane, who graduated from a national law school…

There is some lulzy anti-Stanford trolling going on in this book:

Con Law wrote:Great respect is due to those who can be accepted to Harvard or Yale, and who do well against such intense competition.

Con Law wrote:Many students see rankings as a linear, sliding scale. Not so. In reality, the progression from top-ranked to low-ranked school is anything but. Do not consider the schools as lying on the slope of a gentle hill, where Harvard and Yale perch majestically at the top, while the school ranked at, say, fifty is nestled happily just below the school ranked at forty-nine, a short distance below and still on the same pastoral Harvard-Yale hill, with lesser schools scattered on the gentle slope closer to the valley below.

Consider instead a cliff. Our ten top-ranked law schools, led by Harvard and Yale, are indeed mightily perched atop this cliff, with great views, wondrous landscaping, and plenty of lovely foliage. A few schools cling closer to the edge, in danger of plummeting into the ocean far below. Can they reinforce their foundations? Can they attract those fat donations and superstar faculty and students? Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion! If only. It is, to mix metaphors, an ever-spinning mouse-wheel in which everyone fights for more and better – in a market with less of everything.

Con Law wrote:For the sake of clarity, commonly used terms in this book need explaining. When the term "top-ranked school" is used, it means those schools that typically occupy the top ten spots (not top 10%) in the US News and World Report rankings: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, Berkeley, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Duke, Northwestern and friends, give or take depending on the year. Many will instead refer to the Top 14 law schools as the "national" law schools. Whatever. As mentioned above, being in the bottom of the Top 14 can now be just as bad as being in the middle of the pack. … In the current legal economy, only a top ten law school has the clout necessary to make securing a respectable, fulfilling, and financially-secure legal position a reality for most of its graduates. One could go further still and say that this is really true for the top five or six law schools, at least for now.

Eh. If $2.99 saves even a few people from spending hundreds of thousands at a law school with horrible placement, it's probably worth it. Granted, people can get the same info on TLS (without the convenient synthesis that a book can provide) for free, but to me it's not morally objectionable for them to sell this book with profit in mind. This said, I haven't read a review or anything - just saying that on its face, there doesn't seem to be much of a concern here about putting this book up for sale.

Ironically, it's doubtful that many non-TLS people will even know it exists, so a bunch of people seeing it are already largely aware of the shortcomings of law school anyway. So....

One more thing: so what if the guy went to Alabama Law School? I don't think many people doubt the academic legitimacy of tier 1 law schools; it's just the job placement that they look down upon (and rightfully so).

Con Law wrote:After many months of effort, expense, and no paying clients – not even one! – he resorted to document review work in a desperate attempt to generate some income while he plugged away at solo practice in his spare time. After a few months of the most degrading experience of his life, he finally saw the writing on the wall and called it quits.

Con Law wrote:After many months of effort, expense, and no paying clients – not even one! – he resorted to document review work in a desperate attempt to generate some income while he plugged away at solo practice in his spare time. After a few months of the most degrading experience of his life, he finally saw the writing on the wall and called it quits. There was nothing left the profession could offer, and he is now working happily in a non-law government position.